


Falling

by crossingwinter



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst, Oneshot, angst angst, angst angst angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 15:33:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/928164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title/prompt from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak7rCdMOQPU"> "Falling" by the Civil Wars. </a></p>
    </blockquote>





	Falling

**Author's Note:**

> Title/prompt from [ "Falling" by the Civil Wars. ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak7rCdMOQPU)

Sometimes it felt like sleepwalking.

She had walked in her sleep once before—in the life that belonged to Catelyn Tully.  She had been dreaming that she was walking along the Tumblestone with Lysa, and that they had been giggling about how handsome Brandon Stark was, and then suddenly she had felt a hand clutching at her and had awoken to find her son’s wetnurse holding her arm to keep her from walking off the battlements of Riverrun.

Except there was no Tansy to hold her and keep her from falling.  Indeed, the fall would be welcome, though she was not convinced it would kill her.

She didn’t know if she could die, after all.  The men said that Beric had died seven times, but he had lived seven times as well.  Did she have seven lives left to her?  Or would she wander the world forever, utterly alone?

She could never not be alone.  That much she knew.  She held the crown tighter in her hands and the little iron spikes dug into her flesh, not so cold as the steel that had slit her throat.  It was a sweeter pain, one that reminded her of a boy with russet curls and bright blue eyes and a smile that could stop her heart.  For that boy, for her boy, she would bring blood to the Riverlands, blood to the lands of her father and grandfathers, her mother and grandmothers until those who had wronged that boy had been purged from this earth.

Let Tom write a song about that.  _A Lady’s Revenge_.  Let them always know that not all women were Jonquil and Alysanne.  Let them know that all women were not Jenny of Oldstones, with Flowers in her Hair, and that not all men were the Prince of Dragonflies.  Let them sing of a woman wronged, a woman whose vengeance ran deeper even than the Rat Cook’s, who was no Maiden Fair, but a widow with slashed skin and death in her heart and eyes.  A woman who, when she ran out of Freys to hang, turned west for Lannisters and north for Boltons until there was nothing left, no one to kill, no one to sate the hunger she felt for someone to fight, for someone on whom she could unleash all her rage until she was just a shell, once again—the mad shell of Catelyn Stark.

Stark.  The Mad Stark of Winterfell, she would be.  She was a Stark, she knew that now, that was how she’d be remembered.  No Tully could ever seek to destroy the rivers as she so sought.  Her husband had given her the name Stark when he had wed her in the Godswood of Riverrun, and he had not taken it back with him when he had died, though he had taken his love, his arms, his face from her until there was only the shadow of Ned left in her mind.

Oh, Gods, Ned, please don’t let it be true.

But there were no Gods left for her, and she knew that Ned could no sooner protect her from this than she could protect herself.  For the sad truth of it was that she wasn’t sure that there was love left in her for Ned anymore.

It was a thought that would have moved Catelyn Stark to tears, if her eyes would still cry—that she could not remember her husband’s face, Robb’s laugh, Sansa’s songs, Arya’s smirk, Bran’s gait, Rickon’s hand in hers.  How could all that have left her?  How could she persist, when there was nothing left to live for, when not even the love that had driven her to war could sustain her.  What was this pain she felt, when she thought of them, her flesh and family, torn away from her?  And why was it fading?  Why was it disappearing as surely as each of them had left life behind?  Why could she not leave life behind as well?  Why had Beric Dondarrion not left her to her death?  In giving her life, he had taken her love and without love, the revenge she killed for seemed ashen, weak, corrupt, and everything she wanted so much to fight for…

It was all gone, all faded to nothing and into that void poured a bloodlust so strong that Catelyn Stark would have fought and struggled until she ripped her face apart and they slit her throat. 

But of course, she'd already done that.  The only swords that could reach her now were in her hands, the little knives of the crown her son had worn to his grave, and if it drew blood from her hands now, she did not know and did not care.  Her blood did not matter anymore, not since they’d drained her of it and thrown her into the river so that the drowning weight of the water flushed into her empty veins.  Their blood—their blood was what mattered now, and she would not stop until it watered wasted burned lands, till the snow fell red from the skies and a darkness crossed the Seven Kingdoms, hiding away a sun that would remind her that there was nothing left for her but a stone heart and an iron crown.

 


End file.
